Congratulations to Dave Bussard, who placed first among 684 men in the age 50-54 category at the prestigious Shamrock Shuffle 8km road race in Chicago. He said the temp was 33 degrees (F) and 20 mph winds. Not conducive to fast racing, so he competed and passed others who weren't as well prepared or well controlled.

Congratulations to Zach M., a high school junior who is making great progress. He's dropped his 1600m and 3200m times a lot this season, setting best of 9:22 and 4:23. I expect more from his, as he is really rolling along. I write the workouts, his father coach's him directly. It's a great combination / team.

Congratulations to Dave Peters who ran 2:46 and change at the Boston Marathon. Despite wind and cold rain, he performed very well. Great job of preparing through the harsh winter weather in Ohio this winter, Dave! He was 5th among age 50+ year old runners.

Several runners whom I coach, or for whom I write workouts and their team coaches administer the workouts, have performed very well this spring. Many high school runners have set personal bests by large margins, and it's very exciting news! Five girls have run 11:28 or under, one in the upper 10s. Several girls have run under 5:24 for the 1600m, and two under 5:00. Several boys have run under 10:00 for the 3200m, with 6 of them under 9:45 (4 of them under 9:30, and 2 under 9:20, one under 9:00). Several boys have improved significantly in the 1600m: 7 of them under 4:35, 5 under 4:30, and 2 under 4:20 (one under 4:10). Several have run at or under 2:00 for the 800m, and 1 under 1:53. Note, again, I am not their direct coach. I write the workouts, advice the coaches about how to manage the workouts, what warm-ups or cool downs are ideal, what race strategies to use, how to deal with multiple races at one track meet, how t deal with all the little details that arise in the (art) of coaching athletes.

I value the relationship that the coach and I build. It's a collaboration. I educated, answer questions, and seek to help the coach rise to a higher level of proficiency, gain even more confidence, and love what they are doing (professionally) even more. I notice that the enthusiasm of the coaches with whom I work rises significantly. Maybe it's because they have someone in their corner guiding them? Maybe it's someone with whom they can vent, share their frustration, and find some answers too? Maybe it's just the thrill of seeing their athletes get a lot better, race faster, run with the fast runners and succeed? Maybe it's just a mixture of all of those factors, and perhaps more? (All I know is there is personal growth happening, and it gives me a very good feeling in my "heart" to know that fine people, who just happen to be coaches, are enjoying coaching more than ever.)

Kudos to several runners who have raced very well recently. I wish I'd have more time to keep everyone up to date on the progress of runners, but I want to balance what time and energy that I have among priorities, including my work (I'm a teacher), clients, and my family. If I were just a coach - if I didn't have a teaching job - I would be updating our community about the progress of runners more often. (I keep hoping that runners who race well and set personal best times post on here, but I think they tend to be modest their success. I suggest that our community members thrive when they hear stories of real success from people they share time with on this website; thus, sharing results (one's own results) is helpful to other people.

Jim Mason of Canada ran a really strong 5k race performance at the end of summer. He shocked himself with a performance of about 30 seconds faster than he'd run in the last two years and on-par with what he'd raced at the peak of his masters years from way back.

Gabriel Enning of Sweden ran a big Personal Best time in the marathon. Can't remember the time, but it was under 3 hours (I think 2:57 and change). He's in his 50s, and now running his best times. Great job!

Jenia Vinogradskiy ran a 3 minute Personal Best time in the half-marathon (1:11:54), and he's excited about racing in the Detroit Free Press Marathon next weekend. He's raced very well there in past years, but he's fitter than ever before. Hope the weather is good!

Dave Peters is on a roll and ready to also race in Detroit next weekend.

I am sure many others have run good races lately. Let's hope they share their results, comments with us.

An update about Drew Hunter. He just ran 14:20 on a 5,000m cross-country course. As I mentioned to Joan, Drew's mom, I told a Division I distance coach earlier this week that Drew can run 14:00 (or under ) for 5,000m on the track right now. My expectation is that he'll be in 13:45 form by early December. It will be fun to watch his progress.

By the way, Joan's team did quite well. She can share her thoughts on the matter, though I expect that she should reserved pertinent information about all the training adjustments we discussed on Monday; she, though a remarkably caring person and coach, doesn't need to let all her rival teams know the secrets that give her team and competitive advantage, in my opinion.

OK, Tom...I won't share your skills with the world! As Tom said, our boys team did pretty well- we won the meet on the 6th man tie breaker. Despite Drew's finish, I was pretty disappointed that it appeared we had been CRUSHED by one of our local rivals, who had 4 boys under 16 minutes in the race. We only had 2 boys under 16. My number 2 boy has been dealing with back problems and ended up as our 5th runner, which didn't help us. But we had 6 guys in front of their 5th runner, and our 6th guy was 48th, and theirs was 91st, so we won. Depth helps.

Drew's younger (but taller) brother, Jacob, a freshman, is our 4th runner and ran 16:17 yesterday. Not too bad for a kid who has been running just over 4 months.

Scotland international Andrew Duncan (Inverclyde AC) is among the leading contenders for the men's prize. The Edinburgh-based Caithness man won the race in 2011 and hopes to challenge for a Commonwealth Games qualifying time of 2hr 19min in next month's London Marathon: "I don't know whether 2hr 19min is a realistic target for me at the moment, but I should have a better idea after the half marathon. As usual, there’s likely to be a good field at Inverness and hopefully we can all work together and make it a fast race."